Album: HerStory: A Photography Exhibition of Women in America's Secret City

Manhattan Project National Historical Park

Women in the Secret City​: From janitor to homemaker to chemist, the women of the Manhattan Project worked hard and talked little. During WWII, Oak Ridge was a government town of 70,000 workers; primarily women who lived in a camp-like environment of barbed wire, security checkpoints, and code words. Workers were fingerprinted, interviewed, assigned a job, and given a clearance badge. Housing was limited and cramped and often unheated. Food at the cafeterias was in short supply, lines were long, and their work was essential.